


On Crete

by Giglet



Category: Guns of Navarone (1961), Guns of Navarone Series - Alistair MacLean
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-11
Updated: 2009-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giglet/pseuds/Giglet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Navarone, Mallory and Andrea spent 18 months working together on Crete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Crete

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Resonant for the beta.

Andrea remembered the time on Crete when they crept into the German air base, photographed the plans for the next bombing campaign, and left without anyone seeing them. Very clean: no alarms, no pursuit, no noise, no violence. It was early in their time together. The Germans hadn't yet learned that Mallory and Andrea could be utterly, inhumanly, silent amid the rocks, and that Mallory could scale sheer walls without gear. Later they would be called the Ghost and the Cat (the Cretans nicknamed everyone), but at the time nobody knew they were there, which made life much simpler.

After they passed the film to an agent heading for Cairo, Mallory shared a bottle of retsina with Andrea and laughed aloud. Unlike Andrea, Mallory was not a man to laugh often.

It was cold. Cold on the mountain and cold in the cave, but it was still a good night. While George was on guard, they'd climbed into their sleeping bags, lying close together to share warmth and the slight cushioning of the pallet made of branches. Mallory's back was to Andrea and the cave was dark when Mallory dragged Andrea's arm over him. Andrea left his arm there, and they slept.

\-----

Andrea remembered another time, only a few months later. He was consumed with rage by the news from Macedonia. Now he could barely remember which atrocity had set him off -- there had been too many over the years. But then, he intended to take a Sten and a knife down to the village and start killing Germans until either every German on Crete was dead or he was. George tried to get in his way but his brother-in-law never had a chance. Andrea in a passion was a man beyond reason, beyond listening, beyond anything but primal responses.

Mallory stopped him without even getting near him. Mallory stopped Andrea with his voice, issuing crisp orders that even in his berserker rage Andrea understood were level-headed. For the rest of that mission -- a mission cobbled together in a moment, because Mallory knew that Andrea had to do something -- Mallory ordered him about, eyes cold as ice, as though Andrea were an unthinking automaton under his command rather than a friend who outranked him considerably. It was exactly what Andrea needed. Bombing the bridge and destroying the convoy from Cania were a hell of a lot more effective at hurting the Germans than Andrea's original suicide plan. By the time they retreated back to their camp in the mountains, Andrea's white rage had ebbed to a point where he could at least think again.

He was glad Mallory had stopped him, but he ached, his heart ached in the wake of his anger. Before sleeping, Mallory lit a cigarette and they shared it, passing it back and forth, keeping the ember cupped in their hands to avoid showing it to anyone who might be watching. Although it was not cold, when they slept Mallory lay his sleeping bag beside Andrea on the pallet. That night, Andrea slid his arm over Mallory. Mallory raised his head muzzily, but soon relaxed back into sleep.

\----

The Germans reprisals came a few mornings after. Mallory took it badly. Mallory's jaw was clenched as they watched from the hills. The squad broke down doors and dragged entire families out of their homes. He watched grimly through his binoculars as they were herded into the square. He watched as the commander finished speaking and gave the orders. When they started shooting the women and children, Mallory put his binoculars down, but still he watched, until it was over and the truck was rolling away down the mountain track.

He didn't speak then, or on the way back to camp. It was Andrea who told George to make the radio report and Andrea who sent a runner to the next camp. Andrea, who had seen the horrendous death of innocents before, who had learned how to live with it and continue fighting. Andrea watched Mallory's eyes, fearing that they would turn dark, that he would take a rifle and attack on his own, get himself killed simply because the pain was unbearable.

He took Mallory down to the village. They sweated and burnt in the harsh Cretan sun, digging graves shoulder to shoulder with the villagers. They stood silently when a wailing woman blamed them for the deaths and spat at them, but her relatives took her home, weeping. Mostly the villagers blamed the Germans. Mostly Andrea blamed the Germans. He didn't know who Mallory blamed and he didn't ask. Andrea insisted that they wash up in the well and stay for services, silent as the Patriarch intoned the prayers for the dead.

When the wake began, they faded back into the hills, Mallory still wordless. That night, when Andrea came back from his turn at guard duty and climbed into his sleeping bag, he could feel Mallory shaking in the bag next to him. He was perfectly silent, but coiled into a tight ball, racked with sobs. Andrea pulled him in tightly. In the darkness, he checked Mallory's face, just enough to make sure he was still capable of breathing, then just held him, curled around him, long into the night.

The next day, Mallory was in control of himself again, but his eyes were no longer young. He didn't laugh again for a very long time.

That year felt endless. They were constantly moving, hiding from the Germans and harrassing them, destroying equipment, killing when they had to, and playing insanely dangerous games of cat-and-mouse with machine-pistols through the White Mountains of Crete. They continued to fight, day after day, while around them other groups fell apart, sometimes fatally, and others formed, while SOE men lost their nerve or were pulled out to be replaced by new men. Among the resistance groups and the villages and even (although they did not know it) throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, their fame was spreading: people spoke of Mallory, the Ghost of Crete, and of Andrea, the huge cat who was his shadow.

When they were alone, in the blackness of the deep caves where they hid from the Germans, they slept huddled together as innocent as children. Only in the darkness and silence, and only to Andrea, did Mallory's body language admit his fear, his sorrow, his despair, the humanity that he had to hide in the light. Andrea accepted the gift, and returned it with his own weaknesses. It was the only comfort they could afford.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [On Crete [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/378356) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




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